


Gifted

by LoveWriting



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, Cheating, Child Abuse, Child Death, F/F, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Harassment, Loss of Parent(s), Molestation, Orphans, Rape Recovery, Self-Harm, Swearing, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-04-24 05:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14349339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveWriting/pseuds/LoveWriting
Summary: Emi Hisakawa had always been different from other children since birth. She was extremely interested in the nature and in people and had trouble focusing in school, but she had never been diagnosticated with any kind of mental disorder.In the inside, Emi knew that something was wrong with her. She just didn't imagine it would be something this big.





	1. Prologue

"Pass me the ball, Emi-kun!" the boy named Rokuro yelled from the other side of the camp.

As he had asked, the girl kicked the soccer ball in the direction of the scream, preventing the other child to take it away from her arms.

"Grab it!!" many children screamed at once from the bleachers.

Emi Hisakawa began running in the direction of her team, only recognizing them because of their green shirts due to the fog blinding her. She could feel the heavy rain making her hair wet as she ran, carefully to not trip on the slippy ground and jumping on the pools of water. None of those would stop her, as she had played with worse weather conditions before. Of course her parents had taken her away before the end of the game, but she wouldn't let them do the same this day for whatever reason. That was a special day. If her team won, they would win the Sixteenth Kamikyou Championship. She had been praticing for months, and Emi wouldn't let those months go to waste.

"Taro-kun!" she screamed, approaching the other boy. "Right there, stop him!"

Taro quickly nodded and ran in the direction of a player from the opposite team. As expected, he tried to dodge, only for Emi to rob the ball away from him in a second. She chuckled as the children in the bleachers cheered for her, screaming her name with enthusiasm.

"Yeah, that's right! We're gonna win this game and win the championship!" she thought to herself.

Running as fast as she could and still with the ball, Emi turned in the direction of the goal. She knew that the rival team's goalkeeper was a novice, so scoting a goal should be a piece of cake. When Emi heard steps and breathes on her side, she noticed that she was not alone. When Emi's eyes met the red uniform the boy was wearing, she swallowed, but when she saw the boy next to her, she grinned.

"Kajiura-kun! What a wonderful surprise. I hadn't seen you yet."

Yuudai Kajiura, Emi Hasakawa's archenemy. She barely saw his face with all the fog, but she saw enough to take sight of a wicked grin on it.

"Neither had I, Hisakawa-san. I had almost thought that you finally gave up and didn't come..."

Emi giggled like the statement was a funny joke.

"Well, up to this point you should know better... you really don't know me, do you?" Emi said.

"Maybe I don't, because I expected you to have regained your sanity and gave up in the stupid idea of playing soccer."

"I'll never give up, don't worry. We'll meet many times, this isn't the last time we see each other."

"I'm sure it isn't..."

When he got closer, Emi got a better vision of his face. He gave short glares to the ball she was kicking from time to time, but she didn't show weakness and kept looking directly at his eyes, not showing any kind of fear or hesitation. Directly at his eyes. His eyes. Eyes...

Suddenly, Emi's vision was filled with redness. Everything is red. She couldn't hear anything. She couldn't move, nor feel anything next to her. She could only see red until her vision unblurried.

There were three boys taring directly at her with wicked smiles on their faces.

"I've told you... I don't have anything! I swear!" Emi said involuntarily, her mouth moving by itself.

What?! Her voice was Yuudai's. Was she in that idiot's body?! And what was happening?!

"We'll repeat. Give us all your money." said the tallest boy among the three.

Emi couldn't move or act by herself, but she was inside his body. Trapped there. It felt horrible. Like a prision. How did that happen? She was in the middle of the soccer game, near the goal... and suddenly, she was in a place she didn't recognize, with boys that she had never seen in her whole life and trapped inside Yuudai's body.

"Or else?" she said involuntarily again.

"Yuudai, you idiot... don't provoke these guys. You'll only get yourself in trouble... get US in trouble." Emi thought.

"Boys, hold him back." the tallest boy spoke.

The other three laughed. Emi was filled with fear. What would happen? She wanted to run, but apparently, Yuudai, who was controling the body, didn't want to. Instead, he clenched his hands into fists.

"C'mon, I'm not afraid of you!"

Emi wasn't sure if she wanted to run out of fear or facepalm out of Yuudai's stupitidy. It was clear that he wasn't going to win a fight against three people, much less those muscular boys.

Two of the boys grabbed each of Yuudai's arms to not let him run away. Emi wanted to scream and cry, that really felt horrible. Yuudai kept struggling to break free with no success, until the tallest boy approached and he stopped all his movements out of fear. What would that delinquent to to him? To them?

Her question was answered less than a second after she thought about it. Emi felt a fist punching her face in such a force that made Yuudai spit blood. It hurt on her. It hurt so much. But that wasn't it all. The tall delinquent kept punching Yuudai's face with no breaks. Emi felt just like she was burning. It ached. She had never gone through such a horrible pain. Blood rushed everywhere in the ground. The two other delinquentes decided to finally release Yuudai, after minutes of beating. It was no more than five minutes, but it was like years for Emi.

Yuudai was panting heavily, many bruises covering his face. That would probably result in black eyes. The hematomas ached in both the boy and the girl. "You better think twice before refusing to give me what I want. Let's go, boys. Leave this little shit alone." Yuudai's face was buried in the grass, and only the sound of footsteps dying could tell him that the bullies were gone. Emi wanted to cry. She wanted it to be over already. How many time did she have to spend trapped in Yuudai's body? Forever? And again, her question was immediatly answered as everything slowly went black.

She opened her eyes to see light. Emi sighed in relief after seeing that she wa her again and that she could move willingly. She looked around. That place looked like a room... a hospital room? What was she doing in the hospital? No, that didn't matter! She had just gone through one of the most horrible experiences of her life. Did that really happen to Yuudai? She suddenly felt so guilty for all that stupid rivalry due to an insignificant soccer match.

"Sweetheart, you're awake!"

Emi turned her head towards the door to see both her Mother and Father coming in. They sat in two chairs next to her bed.

"Mom... Dad... what happened...? What am I doing here?..." Emi asked weakly.

"You were playing soccer... do you remember that?" after receiving a nod from Emi, her mother continued. "You were geting near the goal, but then all of a sudden, you collapsed. You broke your leg with the fall..."

"I... fainted...?"

When she saw those things, was she unconscious? But... what were they?

"It must have been too much pressure due to the game., but you will do blood tests to make sure. Don't worry about it."

Emi's father said, calming her down.

"A-alright. But I have a question..."

Emi said.

"What is it, sweety?"

"Did we... win the game?" she asked hesitantly, unsure if she wanted to know the answer or not.

Her parents looked at each other and chuckled.

"Emi being Emi... yes, your team won the championship."

Emi sighed in relief and fell, laying back into bed with her eyes shut and her hands over her chest. One thing less, at least. And in those several weeks of healing, she could think more about those visions.


	2. Sunrise

Emi Hisakawa tightened the grip on her school bag nervously. She could do that. Just come in. Though every time she approached the doorknob determinedly, her hand recoiled by itself in fear. The girl sighed, leaned against the wall and slid down, ending up sitting on the floor. What was wrong with her? She was never a coward in her entire life; quite the opposite, she was always a brave girl and faced her fears.

"Alright, Emi, keep your cool... you can do this. If I get nervous, I'm going to do everything wrong." she muttered to herself and got up, really determined this time.

Emi approached the door one more time, grabbed-- no, clung to the doorknob tightly and finally spinned it and pushed the wooden door. Nobody appeared to notice her arrival, seen that all the other students kept chatting loudly like they were when she was still outside. The girl sighed in relief and closed the door again, picking a random spare seat on the background of the classroom and sitting down.

Having nothing else to do, Emi grabbed the cellphone from her bag to listen to some music. But she had barely put the headphones on when the teacher entered the room, triggering a low moan of irritation out of Emi, who had to put everything back inside her bag. The class was as boring as ever and Emi payed little to no attention to it. Not that it would make any difference, given that she probably wouldn't understand any of the teacher's babble anyway.

Emi sighed in relief when the sound of the school bell echoed inside the room, indicating that the lunch time had just started. She yanked the bag from under her table and was the first one to ran out of the classroom, trying to ignore the glares and giggles that the students behind her gave her.

The sophomore went straight to the rooftop and faintly smiled after seeing she was the only one there. She sat on a bench near the fence of protection to prevent falls and took her cellphone and headphones again to finally listen to music. Already feeling more relaxed, she started eating her bento in a rather quick speed. Emi then threw the empty bent box on the nearest trash bin, sat with her legs crossed and snapped her eyes shut.

If the school bell rang, she probably wouldn't notice it, and no student would like to be late or even miss class on the first day of school, especially if it's also their first that on that school too. Even with this thought on mind, Emi didn't move a finger. But suddenly, she felt someone tap her shoulder, startling her, and she opened her eyes.

There was a boy standing there. He had short and slightly messy dark brown hair and reddish brown eyes. He started moving his lips, but no sound came out, and Emi tilted her head with a  confused expression. The boy then pointed to her ears, reminding her that she was wearing headphones. Emi blushed in embarrassment, feeling pretty stupid, and took her headphones out.

"Can I sit here?" the boy asked, pointing to a spot on the bench by her side.

"Ah... sure." she answered, looking away quickly.

He sat without saying another word, and for the next five minutes, both of them stayed there awkwardly in silence. Emi felt that it would be weird and make her look rude to put her headphones on again; it was basically saying that she wanted to ignore him, right? And if she left the place without saying anything, it would also be awkward, considering that they had talked before. If she left saying goodbye, it would also be weird, since she had just met him! The girl honestly didn't know what to do.

"Hey, you're new here, aren't you?" he asked, trying to make it less awkward. Emi flinched; a very awkward conversation was on the way, she could sense it.

"Yeah, I'm new." she said.

"Ah, I see. We're in the same class. My name is Akatsuki Fukushima."

"I'm Emi Hisakawa. Nice to meet you, Akatsuki."

"Nice to meet you too, Emi!" the genuine smile on his lips made her feel more comfortable and smile back. "Do you have any acquaintances or friends here already?"

"Not really. You're actually the first one that I've talked to since I got here." she giggled.

"Then I can introduce you to my friends after class, if you want. What do you think?" Akatsuki proposed.

"I was originally planning on living the whole year without having to talk to anyone, but I gotta say... it's a convincing proposal." Emi said, still smiling.

"So, how about we meet here after class then?" he smiled too.

"Sounds nice!"

"It's settled then!"

And as if everything was planned, the school bell rang right after Akatsuki finished his sentence. He got up, followed by Emi.

"We should be getting back to class now..." Akatsuki muttered.

"Let's go." Emi agreed.

Emi ran up the stairs carefully, and shyly waved to Akatsuki after reaching the rooftop. He was surrounded by a group of students, seven girls and only one boy. Still, he beamed at her and waved back. She approached all of them and immediately apologized for being late.

"I'm sorry for the wait! I came as fast as I could!" she said all in one breath while panting.

"It's alright, Emi, we didn't really wait much." Akatsuki replied kindly.

Emi glanced at the other eight students and chuckled nervously. How was she even supposed to introduce herself? But fortunately for her, she didn't have to, since a girl with short and ruffled red hair and golden eyes stepped forwards. 

"Hey! Emi Hisakawa is your name, right?" she said, smiling. "Akatsuki was talking about you!"

"Ah, yes, that's me. And what's your name?" Emi asked.

"I am Haruko Inoue, nice to meet you. Come here!" 

Haruko pulled Emi, making her face a very small girl with short blonde hair and pink eyes.

"This is Cho Koizumi! She's adorable, so be nice to her!" Haruko said, whereas Cho blushed, smiled and muttered a low "hi".

Emi gave her a comforting smile before Haruko made her face the second girl. She had long white hair tied in a  ponytail that reached her shoulders with grayish white eyes.

"Hello, Emi! I'm Junko Miyamoto. It's nice to meet you!" she extended her hand for a hand shake, and Emi shook it with a smile.

This time, Emi stepped aside herself to face the other girl, showing Haruko that she already knew what to do. The girl had shoulder-length blonde hair and pink eyes, with a green bracelet on her left wrist.

"Hi, Emi! My name's Kokoro Tachibana!" she said, beaming.

"Hey, Kokoro!" Emi said.

She then stepped to the side to see a girl with long, bright pink hair and caramel eyes smiling shyly.

"Hi... I'm Mai, Mai Yukimura." Mai said, blushing slightly.

"It's nice to meet you! I hope we can talk more in the future." Emi remarked.

The next in the line were two girls together. The one with medium-length dark brown hair was leaning again the one with brownish orange hair, making her look slightly uncomfortable.

"Heya, Emi! I'm Rika Momoki and this is Reina Rikimaru~!" the one with dark brown hair said, ruffling her friend's hair.

"Rika! Ah, sorry for that, Emi." Reina said, chuckling.

"It's fine!" Emi laughed too.

The last one on the line was the boy. He had long silver hair tied in a low ponytail and also silver eyes that resembled iron.

"Ah, Emi Hisakawa. Akatsuki was telling us about you... it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Katsuro Nakamura, but you can call me just Katsuro." he said formally, extending his hand.

"A-ah, thanks..." Emi smiled awkwardly and shook his hand. Katsuro blushed and quickly yanked his hand back.

"Haha, Katsuro's all nice and boring..." Rika said, giggling, much to Reina and Katsuro's disapproval, making the latter flustered.

But before anybody could say anything else, a group of students that Emi remembered seeing in her class rushed through them like they were in a hurry.

"Huh? What was that?" Junko asked, watching while the students ran.

"Perhaps it's some kind of convocation...?" Katsuro risked, putting his hand on his chin.

"Wait, I'll ask one of them." Akatsuki said.

He approached a girl and they started saying things that Emi couldn't hear because she was too far away. But then, Akatsuki nodded, thanked her and came back to the group.

"So, what is it?" Emi inquired.

"Nagisa Igarashi... she wants all of us to go to our classroom so she can give a speech."

"Who is Nagisa Igarashi?"

Everyone looked at Emi in pure shock, leaving the poor girl asking herself if she said something wrong. 

"You don't know who is Nagisa Igarashi?!" Kokoro shrieked.

Emi shook her head. She felt her face getting red.

"Nagisa Igarashi is the leader of the Igarashi Corporation of our city. She is extremely wealthy and has a friendly relationship with the president too; there are rumors that she is merely using him to get involved on state business, considering her intelligence and ambition to expand her power, even though she is only 18 years old." Katsuro said naturally, with his eyes closed. 

"Talk about a show-off!" Rika joked. "You got this straight from Wikipedia, didn't you?"

Katsuro opened her eyes and his face suddenly went plain red. At least Emi felt better knowing that she wasn't the only one embarrassed.

"I-I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to talk that much!!" Katsuro apologized quickly.

"No, it's fine! At least I can have a better idea of who she is." Emi said, soothing Katsuro. "The Igarashi Corporation is that electronic company, right?" she said, lifting her cellphone to reveal that it was from the Igarashi brand.

"Indeed. It is the most powerful business conglomerate in Japan, and Nagisa is its leader after her father's death last year. God... it was such a huge mess after Mr. Igarashi's death. There are rumors that Nagisa herself was the one who murdered him..." Katsuro added.

"There are many bad rumors about her, aren't there?..."

"Ah, there are... but until now none were proven true, therefore we cannot use them as a base to judge her character."

Emi shrugged, with her arms crossed. That was fair.

"But what would someone like her even do in a school like ours?" Emi asked, confused.

"Well, that's what we'll discover now." Akatsuki replied, looking at the rooftop door. "Let's go?"

Everyone nodded and they made their way downstairs to the second year class. Opening the door, Emi was surprised--no, shocked would be a better word after she saw that all the other students were in complete silent, sitting on their chairs. Nobody even turned around after hearing the door open and after they came in. The group of friends sat down and waited patiently for some minutes, until their teacher came in just as quiet, followed by a girl, and another girl.

The first one was extremely beautiful. She had had long, slightly blueish black hair that reached her hips and was cut straight just like her bangs. Her eyes were the same color as her hair and she sported a black long-sleeved business shirt with a white dress shirt under it, a red tie, a black uniform skirt and loafers. The girl wore a gentle smile on her face that for some reason disturbed Emi.

"Is that Nagisa?" Emi whispered as quietly as she could to Akatsuki, making sure that it was audible despite that.

"Yes, that's her." he whispered back in the same tone.

The second girl had messy shoulder-length black hair with an eye-patch on her right eye. The remaining one was blue. She wore an olive green and white military uniform with a black tie, loafers and a green hat. There was a frown on her face and her arms were crossed in a threatening position.

"Who is the other one?" Emi whispered again.

"Aino Sayuna. One of Nagisa's subordinates and her bodyguard."

"Subordinates? Bodyguard? That sounds fancy." Emi said, only realizing a second later that her voice was a bit too loud. She felt her teacher's fulminating glare, despite the distance between them, and just by that, she knew the she had to end the conversation right away or else she and Akatsuki would be in serious trouble.

Emi stopped looking at him and instead, looked down at her desk casually. Why was that such a big deal? Nagisa hadn't even started talking anyway! And was she even important to the point everyone had to behave like lifeless robots? And because of what? Respect or just fear? Normally, the disapproval look of her teacher wouldn't bother Emi in any way, because she had gotten into trouble so many times that she had reached a point where she didn't care anymore. Not that she was a delinquent, just a girl who wanted to be free. But Akatsuki... he didn't seem like the type that got in trouble often. He just looked so innocent! And that about him was kinda cute.

Emi felt her face go red. Had she just thought that, for real? Had she just called him cute?! And most importantly, did she really find him cute? The girl gave him a quick glance again. She hadn't paid attention to it before, but... Akatsuki really was cute. But that didn't mean anything. There was nothing wrong with her finding someone cute. It was not like it was the first time she thought a boy was cute; Emi remembered the times where she innocently dated the boys from her soccer team. It was only strolling around while holding hands and kissing each other on the cheeks, but it counted as a date.

Before she could think of other reasons to convince herself it was no big deal to call Akatsuki cute, Nagisa finally spoke up, making her lift her head on a sudden movement.

"First of all, I'd like to wish all of you a good afternoon!" she said gently. Her voice was soft and feminine, but at the same time, firm. "I understand that all of you are eager to go home, especially after a tough first day of school, so I'll try to make this speech as fast as possible."

Nagisa started walking in circles on the podium of the classroom to look at all the students as she talked.

"I'll go straight to the point. Recently, our city has been suffering from rather frequent attacks towards civilians." she continued, her smile already gone. When she finished her first sentences, some students glanced at each other worriedly, and of course Nagisa noted that. "Some of you might already know what I'm going to talk about, seeing your reactions."

Emi was among the half that had no idea what was happening. She stared at Akatsuki again, and to her relief, he also didn't seem to know what was it. At least she had someone she knew to relate to. Nagisa stopped walking and let out a frustrated sigh while rubbing her eyes. It was like she had something important to say, but was trying to think about the best way to say it. 

"Well... the people behind those attacks aren't like us." Nagisa finally said. "It's hard to explain. These people have powers."

A few loud gasps were heard, and right after that, a murmur between the students. Whether it was about Nagisa being insane or these people with "superpowers", Emi didn't get a chance to actually know because the talking was immediately ceased by the teacher again.

"Everyone... everyone, please, calm down..." Nagisa asked, her hands covering her face due to all the stress she had been going through recently.

Her bodyguard, Aino, was quick to leave the room, and she came back with a cup of water one minute later. Nagisa grabbed the cup and drank its liquid quickly. She then gave it back to Aino, who threw it on the trash can.

"Please, remain calm and I'll explain everything." she assured, starting to walk on the podium again. "The people I'm talking about aren't human, and they have some kind of ability."

For some reason, Emi began getting more and more anxious as Nagisa kept speaking. What was wrong with her? something gave her a bad feeling. She wanted to leave, but at the same time, she wanted to stay and discover who were these people and what made them so special, if they really were true. 

"When they stare into a person's eyes, they can live through a memory of this person. Scientists examined these people, and we discovered that we can identify them by a blood test made in laboratory. They are called... 'gifted'."

Right when Nagisa finished her sentence, Emi's heart skipped a beat and her mind was instantly filled with jumbled thoughts. Her feelings were completely mixed up, but fear and despair ruled over all them. That description fitted exactly what had happened to her in the past. That day. Emi genuinely felt something was wrong with her after it happened, but she kept lying to herself, saying everything was fine, nothing was wrong, it was just a dream, just an hallucination, just some kid of thing. She knew it wasn't true, but she still kept doing it until she eventually forgot completely it had happened, only to convince herself she was not insane.

And worst of it all, these people were actually attacking civilians. But why, were they evil? If they were evil, was she evil too? No, that was the only thing Emi was sure she wasn't. She never wanted to hurt anybody for pure malice. Great, first she knew that she was different from those around her, and now she knew she was also different from her own "people". But Nagisa still was not done.

"And like I said… these freaks are using their powers against us for no reason. By harming one person, they have declared war against the whole nation. They are criminals, and they must be punished for attacking innocents. I'll make sure to exterminate each one of them, and doing that, I will bring justice and keep our city of you safe!" she said, determined to accomplish her promise, and Emi was genuinely scared to see the smiles of relief on her classmates' faces.

"I have a question." Emi's mouth spoke by itself, while she asked herself what the hell was she doing repeatedly.

Nagisa stared at her, surprised, but went back to her cool expression shortly after.

"Yes?" she said flatly.

"You mentioned attacks, am I right? You said gifted are attacking civilians on the city." After receiving a small nod of confirmation from Nagisa, Emi continued. "Why are they doing that?"

"I hope you are not asking this to try and persuade everyone to think they have a reason to do it, because attacking a human isn't justifiable." Nagisa stated bluntly while her eyes pierced through Emi.

"That wasn't my initial purpose, but if I realize that this is an injustice and they had a reason to do it, I'll say it." Emi seriously wished she could disappear after saying that. For her surprise, Nagisa smiled.

"So you are a bold one. What's your name?" she asked curiously, slightly tilting her head.

"Emi Hisakawa." Emi answered, now unsure if what she was doing was brave or stupid. Yeah, there was a fragile line between the two and she would not be surprised if she had crossed it.

"Alright, Emi Hisakawa. I'll answer your question." Nagisa coughed. "Gifted have powers, which means they are more powerful than us." By us, Emi figured Nagisa was talking about humans. "And, logically, if they are more powerful, they'll rule over the world with no problems. And we will have to stay submissive to them. Or better saying… would. We must destroy each and every one of them to avoid that fate. We will show them that humans are, and will always be superior."

Emi blinked twice quickly. That girl was completely insane! Obliterate a group of people merely because she thought they would want power? Merely because she said so? Commit genocide? Emi tried her best to stay calm, but that girl was starting to get on her nerves.

"You didn't really answer my question." she said.

"I know. I was just explaining so I could answer it. Will you be a good girl and be more patient so I can finish?" Nagisa gave her a smile. Emi showed no reaction, because she knew that was what Nagisa wanted. "Thank you. I was contacting all the important figures in our city so we could find the best way to achieve our goal. However, somehow, they ended up discovering it. A few tried to escape, but they were already detained and taken care of.  Another portion of them decided to hide and pretend to be human. The rest of them decided to attack people, but they were neutralized."

"I understand that what they did was wrong. But you pushed them too far... you don't have solid proof that they want to take over the world and enslave us all. Why don't we talk to them and see if we can make a deal or something?" Emi proposed calmly.

Nagisa let out a amused laugh with a hand covering her face. 

"We can't make deals with these people, that would be suicide! They are not trustworthy!" she said like it was obvious. "These people are demons! Demons! It's either us or them! And I will make sure that no more humans are harmed because of these demons!"

Emi swallowed hard again. She knew herself enough to know that the next thing she would say would be an insult, so she chose to stay quiet, much to Nagisa's amusement.

"Continuing... I know our city has a very big number of people, and it would be impossible to identify all the gifted here. The only thing I ask of you is to be extremely cautious. Despite not being human, gifted look exactly like one, so they could easily go unnoticed. From now on, airports, bus stations, train stations and subways and the borders of this city will be monitored to avoid the escape of these people." Nagisa stayed silent for a few seconds. "Well, if nobody has anymore questions, I'm going to leave now. I hope all of you have a good day!" Nagisa said, then left with her bodyguard mechanically following her. 

Emi was still in shock. Just like when her mouth talked by itself, her legs moved automatically and she got up without even thinking. She yanked the bag from her chair carelessly and ran towards the door as fast as she could without even caring what people would think. Why should she care, if they didn't? Emi didn't stop running still. She left the school and kept running along the streets as fast as she could with no signs she would stop soon. Her legs hurt a lot, but she was so desperate that the realization of the pain on her legs didn't reach her.

She only stopped ten minutes later, when she found a park. There was nobody there, only a few birds. Emi staggered to one of the benches and let herself fall over it, exhausted of running so much. She placed her bag next to her and let out a long sigh as she tried to process everything that had just happened a while earlier. Anything could be better than that. Anything. That was humiliation on its worse form, since it was hidden behind kindness. Nagisa's words were like sharp daggers piercing into her skin in front of everyone, but no one tried to do anything to make it stop. It was clear that people acted that way not because of fear or respect, but because of the mix of the two: awe.

Emi still needed a few minutes for her breath to come back to normal and for the nervousness to stop. It was still a shocking revelation nevertheless, but all she had to do was keep calm and try to figure out more things about gifted. With a sparkle of curiosity and maybe even excitement inside of her, Emi got up and walked to her house. After locking the door and closing the windows, she threw her schoolbag on her bed and immediately sat on the chair of her desk, facing the computer. She opened a window on google and almost wrote a single word on the searching tab, suddenly getting a sick feeling in her stomach. Her shaking finger clicked on the button to search almost reluctantly.

A big amount of pages popped up, most of which were reports from attacks. Emi chose to see the Wikipedia one first, though the sensation of anguish only increased. She skipped the first paragraphs because they were only the basic information she already knew; gifted are people who have powers. The third paragraph catched her attention, however. It said that experiments showed that after practice, the powers of gifted can be easily controlled. But how would she even practice that? With the whole city, and maybe even nation, or in the worst case, world against her, who would agree to help her practice? 

Reading more, she also discovered that gifted powers weren't hereditary either. Apparently they were a random occurrence. Which made Emi imagine... how would her life be if she wasn't gifted? Well, firstly, she wouldn't be there right now. She wouldn't have acted that way after Nagisa's speech. It wouldn't have changed her life at all. She wouldn't be thinking about the future. She wouldn't be worried if she would survive. She would have lived a normal life, wouldn't care about gifted and maybe even support the genocide against them. Yeah, maybe life made the right choice by making her gifted.

Emi left the page and added one more word to her search. "Murder". There were many pages too, but most of them said basically the same thing: "Gifted aren't humans, they don't have rights, they're trying to make everyone their own personal slaves and must be stopped before they accomplish that, blah-blah-blah". The Igarashi Companies in other cities were investing on projects against gifted too, just like Nagisa in her city. They really left no choices to gifted people. So many murders every day, and why? For a cause said to be true? Why would they appeal to violence with no proof that gifted were really planning on doing something that evil? And even if they were, not all gifted were like that, right? Emi herself wanted no bloodshed, either it be from the human's part or the gifted part. Why did it have to be like that?

Deciding it was too much for just one day and staying there would only make more doubts appear, Emi turned her computer off and layed on her bed. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep easily after what she had seen and discovered that day, but she still closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep anyway. After only a few seconds in, a thought invaded her mind. Akatsuki... could he really help her? What if he hated gifted too? One side of her trusted him like a friend of a lifetime, but other didn't want to take risks. For the possibly first time in her life, Emi Hisakawa felt indecisive, and she felt like these two sides of her were pressuring her for answers.

"Okay, okay... I'll talk to him tomorrow and see what he thinks about the subject... this is the best thing to do." Emi said to herself like she was talking to someone, hoping that a temporary answer could satiate the hunger for answer of those two sides. 

Emi rolled in her bed to face the ceiling in absolute silence. She slowly closed her eyes, hoping to fall sleep fast, end that day already and go meet Akatsuki the other day.


End file.
